There’s a great book by Clotaire Rapaille called “The Culture Code.” In his book, Rapaille explains how everything in our lives is based on an imprint that we have. And how all those imprints are formed early in our childhood. A first impression of something that then drives every decision that we make.
Big Fortune 100 companies hire Rapaille to determine the “code” for a particular product. He studies their target market, looks for invisible imprints about that product, and then suggests ways to use what he finds to improve sales.
Anyway. In the 1970s, Nestle was trying to sell coffee drinks in Japan. But they couldn’t get any traction, so they hired Rapaille to help them figure out why. Turns out, Japanese culture was not a coffee-drinking culture. It was a tea-drinking culture. Japanese kids grew up without having any natural imprint on coffee. Coffee meant nothing to them, there were no memories connected to it, and its smell didn’t evoke any emotions.
Coffee was this weird beverage with a bitter taste. So Rapaille went to Japan, formed several groups and started studying people, their childhoods and habits. And what he came up with next was probably one of the most significant “evil schemes” ever hatched.
Ready?
He suggested that Nestle stop pushing their coffee drink… and start selling a coffee-flavored children’s dessert instead.
Pure genius.
You see, Rapaille handed them a recipe for turning all those Japanese kids into coffee-drinking adults. Fortunately, Nestle had the foresight to follow his suggestion, and by doing so, they could imprint an entire generation with the taste of coffee. And by focusing on the future and thinking 10 to 15 years ahead, Nestle single-handedly turned Japan into a coffee-drinking nation. From scratch.
Interesting what happens when you take on that long-term thinking about your business and adopt the “dig the well before you’re thirsty” strategy. Think about it. 10 to 15 years from now (in most industries), every single prospect you have will be gone, and you’ll have to go out finding new ones.
But what if… you don’t have to?
Imagine how much bigger your pool of prospects can be if you adopt the same long-term strategy… if you go out looking for gateways into your world already out there right now…
And start developing a whole nation of your FUTURE prospects today.
Ben Frank and I talk more about this in the podcast. head on over!
